5 comments:

I know it's unrelated, but I just wanted to compliment you as a great source of atheist resources. It's not easy finding any- the internet is dominated by apologists and theologians. It's easy to accidently run into sites. like, say, this one:

http://akma.disseminary.org/?s=theology

Or this one:

http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/

It's like as if for every sceptic there's ten online theologians with a PHD that were educated at Oxford. What's the deal with that? Also, while on this topic, do you know of any good, scholarly works on theology from a non-christian perspective? I have difficulty understanding what it actually is, what arguments they put foward, and how non-christians respond. Thanks, and keep up the good work!

Andyman: Thanks! I can't really comment on theology in particular, as my interests in the area (which faded some time ago) were primarily in philosophy of religion and history rather than theology. Your question might be better directed to somebody like Robert M. Price, who is one of the three hosts of the Center for Inquiry's Point of Inquiry podcast, and who regularly interviews people with rather odd but interesting theological views (like Bo Bennett, who advocates "Christian non-theism," Thomas J. J. Altizer, a "death of God" theologian). He's talked about, but I don't think he's interviewed Don Cupitt, who advocates theological non-realism--he was interviewed by the Philosophy Bites podcast. Those views all seem a bit kooky to me, but no more so than Christian theology.

The first one has some absolutely bonkers interpretation of Christian scripture. Just listen to the section called 'Sunday School'.

It is easy to see that no one on that show knows what they are talking about in regards to Christian eschatology (or textual criticism, for that matter). I'm not saying they should all be "Bible experts" - I understand atheists feel they don't have the time to do serious exegesis - but this section alone demonstrates a surprising level of incompetence.

One guy says so heaven is 'packed with Hebrew virgins' and the other says 'Isn't sex a sin' ... and on and on ... Jesus practices (or commands) cannibalism ... only 144,000 people make it into heaven ... seriously?

They should have read just *one* commentary before they recorded this episode.

Vocab

PS - Andyman409 ... I would recommend Wayne Grudem's 'Systematic Theology'. It should be helpful to you because in each section he gives all the competimng views before explaining his own - very helpful! (and no, he didn't go to Oxford; he went to Cambridge=)

Thank you for the plug, Jim. We now have 4 episodes up and we're getting better with every episode. Listeners can give feedback to help us improve at feedback@desertairpodcast.com. We have a combination of Science, Skepticism, and religion put together with Brandon's expert skills and audio equipment. Give us a listen (and feedback).